#HTE

Incredible Eames Lounge Chair Rebuilt With Recycled Skateboards

Whether wittingly or unwittingly, Canadian fabricator and skateboarder Andrew Szeto purchased a faux Eames Lounge Chair.

The only good thing about owning a lousy knock-off is that you have no psychological problem ripping it apart, which is exactly what he did.

Szeto then refabricated ­­the back–by recycling old skateboard decks.

After cutting the decks (so many decks) into strips, he then began laminating them together.

I was wondering how he could possibly bend these pieces, which are laminated along the wrong axis to be put into a mold. Then I realized he wasn’t going to put them into a mold at all, as he began mitering the edges and laminating them into upwards wings:

Once he’d reached a rough approximation of the desired shape…

…he again impressed me by going at it primarily with rough construction/demo tools, like a reciprocating saw, an angle grinder and a power planer:

It was incredible to see how well the shape came out after some sanding:

By way of finishing, he applied a fiberglass film:

And finally, the pieces were ready for remounting:

A pretty good result, I’d say.

While I know the knockoff trade isn’t going to go away, I do wish all faux pieces would be ripped apart by their owners and re-interpreted. I damn sure wouldn’t do it with an original.

Anyways, if you’d like to see the full video of the build, it’s all here:

And if you want to see how the real thing is/was put together, click on either of the following:

1950s footage of the original Eames Lounge Chair being assembled.

How Herman Miller manufactures the Eames Lounge Chair today.